Win Your Day Before It Starts

5 steps to stop sucking at planning your day

For the last 7 years, every day in my week would start the same way. I would have gone to bed too late the night before, knowing I'd be dead the next morning. I would set the alarm clock to the last possible moment, and then still hit the snooze when it goes off. I would then proceed to find something to put on, quickly kind-of-brush-my-teeth, and run out of the flat in a hurry.

Here's the paradox: I would manage projects, deadlines, presentations at work with a high success rate, but I wouldn't be able to get something as simple as my own morning right.

People plan holidays, careers, families, retirements; and yet they suck at planning something as small as their day.

Then, one day, I just realised: I needed to stop thinking that I was a natural at planning things — I sucked at planning my morning, literally every day.

If you're anything like me, here's how to fix that.

Step one: realise that your day is broken

The first step to fixing anything is to notice that it's broken.
If you wake up every morning rushing to work, your morning is broken.

Stop thinking that you'll take a holiday at some point, and "recharge the batteries" and get so much rest. Even though I'm the first one to tell you that you should go on that holiday, you can't rely on that to fix you.

It's like not taking a shower for a month, because you're going to the seaside on holidays next month. It doesn't work that way.

Don't wait for the weekend or holiday to fix you. Make small changes in your day, that will make it better every day, and then sit and enjoy the compound effect.

Step two: spend two minutes the night before to plan the your morning

If you're worried that it's just additional work in the evening after the whole day of tiresomeness, put a timer on, and literally give yourself 2 minutes.

Take a piece of paper, and plan your morning:

• what time are you going to wake up ? (If you are going to snooze, there is no point setting the alarm at that time. If you can snooze, set it for later. If you are always late, set it for earlier. Either way, disable snooze)
• what are you going to have for breakfast, and how does that help your wellbeing ?
• how much time do you need for your shower ? (have you tried cold showers ?)
• what's the time to leave for work, that will give you enough margin to not worry about being late ?

Step three: implement the plan, and stick to it for a week

For me, a week was enough to prove to myself, that it's worth the effort.

If, after a week, you don't think that's worth your time, come back here, and insult me in the comments sections.

Or, otherwise, use it as the fuel you'll need to stay motivated in the future improvements.

Step four: normalise your sleeping patterns

For most people, it's much easier to wake up in the morning, if you are used to that time. Which basically means, that if you find a routine that suits you, and you stick to it most of the time, you will make it a habit.

Before I knew about that, I would feel heroic, staying up another night, working on my startup. "I stayed up coding until 4 am" sounds surprisingly cool to say. But then I realised, that if I do that, I will basically have to write most of my weekend off for catching up on sleep, and even if I got the extra 5 hours of sleep I lost, I would still feel tired as before.

Think of staying up late as a payday loan: when the time comes, you will have to pay back with interest, and if you can't pay, the collection man will come, and you'll get knocked out, sick in bed.

Habits are not sexy. I know.

But good habits take you a long way, long enough to get to do the sexy stuff.

Step five: master your morning

Now that you have the basics covered, you are ready to get serious about planning your day. You are aware of the big impact of the small changes to your plan, and you can start rolling out your goals. Here's a couple of directions to get you started.

Thinktime/meditation

If you haven't done that, start with an experiment. Schedule 10 minutes to just sit, stare in the distance, and think about solutions to your problems.
You will be surprised how pleasant and effective it can be. Do it tomorrow. And then take it from there.

Breakfast

For years and years, I would skip breakfast. After all, it's not difficult to make it until lunch. But that doesn't make you feel taken care of ? Treat yourself, and trade the extra 20 minutes to prepare yourself a hotel-quality breakfast. And then see how much it's going to help you feel capable and important.

Reading

If your hours permit that, wake up 30 minutes earlier, and read some of the things that you marked as "read later", or "interesting". I wouldn't suggest reading your emails, I would grab a book. That's 2.5 hours a week, so you can read a book this way every couple of weeks.

Think about the commute

Since you're no longer a tired zombie every morning, you can actually plan things for your commute. It depends vastly on what your commute is like, but think of podcasts (here is a couple of my favourites), or audiobooks. Squeeze in more learning time, and get smarter, even if it's 25 minutes a day.

Start a diary

It doesn't have to be every day, and it doesn't have to start with "my dear diary" ;) It's about storing the state of your mind every now and then, to be able to go back, remind yourself, and see the progress that you've made ever since. For me it's a lot of numbers, ideas, lists, that I dump on paper a couple of times a week. Try it.

Ease yourself into bedtime

This one is hard, because it initially feels like you're stealing some precious time from yourself. But it isn't. The goal is to create an environment with optimal conditions for you to fall asleep. A lot of research went into looking at the effects of staring at fluorescent lights before sleep, and the bottom line is, that if you want to fall asleep smoothly, you'll need some preparation.

If you're a tech person like me, give the programmable light bulbs a try. They are nice especially during the winter, when you can essentially recreate your own dusk long after the sun is gone, by programming the lightbulbs to progressively dim out at a certain time. They are not cheap, but check them out — like Philips Hue or LIFX.

Thanks for your time

Thanks for reading. I hope that the 5 minutes you invested yield good results for you.

Have an amazing day !